About The Project

This project started out involving a movie called “The Spook Who Sat By The Door” made in 1973. After watching it, I wanted to make an instrumental project with excerpts from the movie. The project never transpired but was in the back of my head for years and so when I revisited it, I decided to broaden its scope and make it about the black experience in America. That black experience deals heavily with the title of this project.

The title basically came soon after I started working on it. We went from being called “Nigger”, a word used as a form of degradation and psychological warfare, to calling ourselves “Nigga” as a form of endearment. I don’t use the term myself and feel that it is harmful and damaging in many ways but as an artist, I have to raise hard questions and sometimes address controversial issues. There is a complex history here and I tried to address some of that through this project. We cannot move forward until we deal with the past, and I feel that the word represents’ part of the past and present psychological oppression of black men in America.

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Song Info: This section will give you some insight into the project while also shedding light into each song on the EP. 1. Runaway Slave – This was the first song of the project and the hardest to finish. While trying to sleep one night, the bass line came to me so I got up to record the basic idea. Once I started, I ended up working on the song till morning. I was very emotion while putting this song together and I got even more emotional with each sound that was added. I could picture the chains, the dogs, the breathing while creating this track. That was the moment I could feel an even stronger connection to the project. It made me remember the huge sacrifices that were made before us.

Movie Excerpts: Roots Miniseries, 1977

2. Whoa Buck – Not all things in the black experience are sad and negative so I had tried to follow up the emotional start with an upbeat track. I used an old work song called “Whoa Buck” for the verses and some of the instrumentation. You can find a lot of parallels between these old songs and the songs of today.

Music Sample: “Whoa Buck” Work Song, National Library of Congress

3. Black Man’s Burden – The burden being discussed within this song is obviously being black and everything that comes with it. I had this half-finished track from years ago that I was finally able to use for a project. It was a track where I’d used a Curtis Mayfield sample that was uplifting, strong yet still kind of sad. That’s the feeling I was going for with this track and I feel the movie samples helped bring it together.

Music Sample: Curtis Mayfield – “We people who are darker than blue” Movie Excerpts: The Spook Who Sat By The Door

4. Black Is The Color – This is probably my favorite song on the EP. It samples Nina Simone’s “Black Is The Color of my True Loves Hair” for the verses and parts of the instrumentation. I played the keys with my limited skills but felt I did it justice. This is an all around chilled out track that still carries a message.

5. Nigga On Nigga – This title was a play on the phrase “Black On Black Crime”. I couldn’t create this project without addressing the violence that plagues Black America and so I addressed it on this track. You may also notice that it’s the shortest track on the project.

6. Niggas Can Dream Too – The last track leaves us on a positive note. I had created this track a few years back and thought it was still inspiring and so I used it for this project. I meshed it with the quotes from the movie “Coolie High” that still hold true to this day. In the end, it’s our minds that will free us and achieve greatness.